There’s no denying that Macs have been quite popular with students for years, and with good reason. Apple’s computers are ideal for an academic context (and, we’d argue, almost any context, but we might be biased), given their reliability and features that help its users to get stuff done. However, I’ve come to realize that students often use their Macs superficially. Most are not taking full advantage of everything OS X offers them, not to mention the myriad of incredible third-party apps.

I’ll attempt to capitalize on my 4-year experience with using Macs as a student. In all honesty, many of these tips can be applied to any situation, so long as it involves productivity in one way or another. Moreover, don’t expect these tips to be mindblowing; they’re aimed at new Mac users, but even old timers might find a new tip or three.

Have you been staring at the same dull desktop wallpaper for weeks? Do you need something to spruce up your computer in time for summer? Then look no further as we present 100 of our favorite wallpapers for Mac. From beautiful photography to simple, clean designs, there will be something for everybody in this collection.

If you would like to skip directly to a certain style of wallpaper, just select one of the categories below:

As much as I love using Mac OS X, there have been numerous times since I started using a Mac back in 2006 when that I’ve wanted to run a Windows application. While the option of using Boot Camp or another program such as Parallels Desktop has always been there, they both required me to have a licensed copy of Windows (as do many of the other options out there). Being a student, buying a copy of Windows was out of the question and I had to make do without.

WinOnX however, is a nice little program that allows certain Windows applications to be run on OS X (only 10.6 and 10.7 however) without the need to purchase and run a copy of the Windows operating system. In this article I’ll be taking a look at WinOnX, read on for my thoughts.(more…)

For decades now, voice control over any type of hardware has been the epitome of immersive user interface. From Star Trek to Iron Man, you have seen the benefits of vocal commands used over and over in many forms of science fiction. To date, technology still tries to mimic the essence of voice control from its sci-fi roots.

Like 3D, voice control has been a fun gimmick for computers, video game peripherals like Kinect and even televisions. More often than not, the software fails to capture the greatness that voice control could one day be. Recently however, Apple introduced the iPhone-4S-exclusive voice control behemoth known as Siri — which soon became the most popular feature of the handset. Why hasn’t this extremely helpful and rather cool piece of software made it to OS X yet? Better yet, why should it?

This year, with the launch of Lion, Apple has been all about “Back to the Mac” – Taking great features from iOS, and porting them over to OS X. For the most part, this has been fairly successful. For this reason, it makes sense that many iOS developers would do the same.

In this roundup, we’ll have a look at the biggest success stories in this field. The developers featured here didn’t just rebuild the interface for OS X, they enhanced the app to rival (and often surpass) their iOS counterparts.

It’s been a long two years since the release of Snow Leopard, and with all the fanfare surrounding Apple’s mobile devices recently, many Mac users, myself included, are feeling a little left out. Lion’s much-anticipated release follows Apple’s promise to bring focus “back to the Mac” by integrating advancements from iPhone and iPad development into the Mac platform. In its attempt to bring the best of iOS to the next generation of OSX, Apple has some people worried that Lion will turn their Macs into giant iPads, or introduce iOS-like restrictions to the Mac. Now that this cat is finally out of its cage, let’s dive right in and see what Lion has to offer!

Unlike Snow Leopard, which featured mostly behind-the-scenes improvements and few obvious changes, Lion is a feature-packed major update that will noticeably change the way you use your Mac. Lion comes packed with over 250 new features, so let’s take a look at some of its biggest selling points (in no particular order).

In today’s WWDC keynote, Apple shared the usual set of Mac statistics that we now almost take for granted. Notebook and desktop sales are up, the platform continues to outgrow the PC industry as a whole, and everything is going swimmingly. There’s still a major bias toward portable computers – 73% of Macs sold are notebooks.

One of the headline stories centred around what to expect in their next operating system — OS X Lion — due for release in July 2011. Not only did Apple announce that this will be a download-only release through the Mac App Store, but it’s also their lowest priced operating system to date, costing $29.99.

Being productive is all about being efficient, and restarting your computer is always a process that steals precious minutes from your life. If only there was a way to have a fine level of control over this frustrating task…

That’s the concept behind Startupizer, a new app available at the Mac App Store. If you’re anything like me, you have a few different extensions that all load up prior to the machine actually being usable.

Startupizer lets you tweak your startup settings so that you decide what opens when, making boot times substantially faster. As usual, there’s more to it, so let’s take a moment and delve into Startupizer and what it does after the break.

If you, like me, sometimes find distraction in anything and everything other than your work, paring down your digital workspace to maximize productivity can be a daunting task. Fortunately, Mac OS X comes with some built-in tools that you can use to combat your lack of willpower. These tools are cleverly disguised as Parental Controls.

Sure, OS X’s built-in Parental Controls may be used to monitor and limit your child’s usage of your Mac, but I’ve found that some crafty tinkering can turn this set of options into a powerful way of managing your distractions and keeping yourself on-task. The following set of steps is meant to be a guide on how to set up Parental Controls to increase your productivity, but feel free to amend the guide based on the distractions you need to eliminate most.

If you recently made the switch to Mac from a Windows computer, you might be a little “lost” regarding what software is supposed to replace your old setup, or what apps are particularly worthwhile to own on the Mac platform.

One of the great things about having a Macintosh is the amazing range of beautiful apps available, many of which have the potential to add a great deal to your computing experience.

Today, we’re taking a look at some of the apps that we find vital and very useful, as well as software that makes using a Mac much easier than Windows!